According to one biography, a 12-year-old Princess Elizabeth, who had already proven herself a talented horsewoman, told her teacher that, had she not been headed for the throne, she would “like to be a lady living in the country with lots of horses and dogs.”

Well, she managed to do that . . . most of the time anyway.

Many 12-year-old girls wish for a horse, but it would be Queen Elizabeth’s destiny to have stables full of the animals. She has a passion for the ponies and even bets on them. She owns and breeds racehorses. She hosts the Royal Windsor Horse Show. And she rides.

He was in the green-and-white silks that he wore as jockey for J. Louis Levesque, where he began as a hot walker, the person who walks horses around so they can cool down after races or workouts.

Turcotte, as race fans know, went on become Canada’s most accomplished, and most famous, thoroughbred racehorse jockey.

Perhaps one of the greatest jockeys ever.

Three years after this photo was taken, he would go on to win the Triple Crown when he rode Secretariat.

But in 1970, it was Fanfreluche’s sire, Northern Dancer, that captivated the Queen.

“Her Majesty the Queen was crazy about Northern Dancer,” says Turcotte, 71, on the phone from his home just outside Grand Falls, N.B. “She loved that horse.

“I rode him as a 2-year-old back in 1963 and we were discussing his temperament, what kind of horse he was, what a good runner he was. The greatest Canadian racehorse of all time — and still today — and the greatest stallion of all time. His sons and daughters went on to do really well.”

Turcotte, who became a paraplegic after he took a fall in 1978, would have a chance to discuss horses with the Queen again.

“I met Her Majesty quite a few times,” he says, being careful to refer to the Queen in the most formal of terms. “I’m a member of the Order of Canada and I met her again in Toronto — I don’t recall the date — and then again at her Golden Jubilee.